Grace For The Journey

  A part of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13 is, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven!”  (Verse 10).  Many of us have been reciting these words since we were children . . . but do we really know what we are praying for?  Do we understand how dangerous and radical these words really are?  Do we realize how the truth of these words actually lived out in our lives would turn our world upside down?

Why is this so?

Because, as children of Adam and Eve,

Our sinful nature would infinitely prefer

To build our own little kingdom,

Rather than build the Kingdom of God.

And this self-centeredness does not cease

When God grants us the faith

To become children of Abraham (Galatians 3:7);

Even after we are saved by God’s grace,

That old sin nature still fights

To continue construction

On its little kingdom of one (Galatians 5:17).

So . . . what kingdom have you been building lately?  “His” kingdom? . . . or “Your” kingdom?

You won’t know whose kingdom you are advancing simply by measuring it against the challenges, obstacles, persecutions, and storms you may be facing.

Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean

You are doing God’s work!

Everyone on this side of the grave faces trials for countless reasons.  But . . .

When you face these difficulties

For the glory of Jesus Christ,

You can be sure you are working toward

The expansion of His Kingdom and not yours.

Working for the expansion of God’s kingdom means death – death to self and our own desires.

Instead of ordering our own lives,

We take our orders from another

. . . And His name is Jesus Christ.

He tells us to go where we often would rather not go.  He tells us to speak up when we would rather remain silent.  He tells us to plug into the lives of others when we would rather remain unplugged.

Yet . . .

It is only in this kind of death

That we actually find life!

Death to self leads

To life in our Savior,

And

Life in our Savior

Leads to expanding His Kingdom, not ours.

When we earnestly pray for God’s kingdom to come we are asking God to reorient our hearts away from the love of self to the love of God and others!  And it is only the grace f God that can accomplish the monumental task of removing self from the throne of life and putting Jesus there.

As a pastor, I often minister to others in difficulties of life . . . people will ask me, “How do I overcome this?” . . . “How do I get through this?”  I’ll often encourage them to unpack this portion of the Lord’s Prayer.  In this verse God helps us to look to Him, lean on Him, and learn of Him, and most importantly surrender control of our every aspect of our lives to the One who nailed them all to a cross!

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The Journey

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”